To Duval Family Home Page Asia
To Chris Home Page Yisra'el, Lubnān, al-Urdun, the Ghazzah Strip and Sūriyya
To Earth (Geography Home Page) Yisra'el, Lubnān, al-Urdun, the Ghazzah Strip

עכו ('Akko)

עכו ('Akko), formerly عكا ('Akkā) is a city on the north end of H̱efa Bay on the Mediterranean shore of ישראל (Yisra'el or Israel) with a population of 45 thousand.1 The city came into prominence when it became capital of one of the Crusader's feudal states and was named Saint-Jean-d'Acre (also called St. John d'Acre or just Acre). It was destroyed in the 16th century but populated again in the 18th. The old city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring the Crusader buildings and walls of the 12th and 13th centuries, and the Ottoman buildings of the 18th and 19th. The Ottoman khan became a British colonial prison. Just beyond the city proper is another World Heritage Site: the Bahá'í Shrine of Bahá'ulláh.

YearPopulationPolitical entity
1200 CE40,0002Imperium Romanum Sacrum (Holy Roman Empire)3
2013 CE45,0001ישראל (Yisra'el or Israel)

partly ruined stone wall framed by green palms
Interior of the Church of the Resurrection/ Holy Sepulcher, Yerushalayim (Jerusalem)

Historical maps

map showing parts of the Sulṭanate of Miṣr and Sūriyya (Ayyubid Empire), and Imperium Romanum Sacrum (Holy Roman Empire), 1200 CE

map showing part of the Sultanate al-Mamalik (Mamluk Empire), 1300 to 1500 CE

map showing part of the Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye (Ottoman Empire), 1600 to 1800 CE

map showing part of the Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye (Ottoman Empire), 1900 CE

map of Yisra'el, Lubnān, Urdun and the Ghazzah Strip 2000 CE showing Akko

Footnotes

1. world-gazetteer.com, accessed 6/3/2013.
2. Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987), "Tables of World's Largest Cities". It was the largest city in the area in 1200 CE.
3. King Amalric II owed secular allegiance to Heinrich VI of the Imperium Romanum Sacrum, though some would treat this area, the Regnum Hierosolimitanum, as independent.